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The Republican 'War on Women' Is Over. Women Lost.

Remember the "war on women"? Republicans expected to win that, along with the
election.

But losing doesn’t mean having to say they're sorry for letting an employer
opt out of insurance coverage for birth control, or letting any doctor in
Virginia opt in for vaginal probes. Nor does it mean inviting women into the
room when the door closes on Capitol Hill.

Instead, Republican bosses continued the war by other means, initially
failing to choose one woman to run a House committee in the new 113th Congress,
as this helpful photo illustrates. The 19 male leaders presented such a rogue's
gallery of 1950s-era white male power, the image could have been a promo shot
for "Mad Men."

Maybe Republicans didn't see anything wrong with that, but it was news enough
for Brian Williams to throw it on screen last week on "NBC Nightly News," where
it spoke for itself. "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart presented it as proof there
would be little effort to reach out to women beyond "a free pedicure during
every mandatory ultrasound."

Who says Speaker John Boehner is too old and orange to change? Very quickly
he found a job for a woman, last week appointing Representative Candice Miller
of Michigan to run the House Administration Committee. Yes, it sounds exactly
like what it is: The committee's purpose, as Boehner said, is "ensuring the
House runs efficiently and smoothly." We don't know if Miller will be seeing to
the coffee.

It isn't much of a committee assignment. But you can bet they won't sit for a
group photo without her.

(Margaret Carlson is a Bloomberg View columnist. Follow her on Twitter.)